Episode 4 Helicopter Heroes

If you're critically ill or seriously injured, seconds count.

And in Britain's biggest county you can be a long way from help.

-Where's the patient?

-Stuck under the car!

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance flies at 150mph,

and thanks to its speed hundreds of patients are alive today,

saved by a highly skilled team of doctors and paramedics.

-Stand clear, everybody.

-Keep going!

It covers some of the UK's most rugged landscapes.

Turning roadsides into operating theatres.

We're going to pop him off to sleep with an emergency anaesthetic, OK?

And town centres into helipads.

-Fell good on the land?

-Just behind you, Tim.

And every day the Helimed team's skill, speed and courage

is saving lives.

Today on Helicopter Heroes...

Paramedic Glen must save a labourer

badly burned in an underground explosion.

They've been trying to get this tank out and it's just gone bang.

A teenage driver is thrown from her cartwheeling car... And lives.

-Complaining of central spinal tenderness.

-Oh, my leg!

Pilot Andy battles the blizzards to reach a walker injured in the Peaks.

I see a little bit of hill fog starting to settle.

And the team races to rescue a biker injured on the Yorkshire Wolds.

Ankle's completely gone.

Being a paramedic is a difficult, sometimes distressing job.

And among the worst injuries you can be called on to treat are burns.

In South Yorkshire a major emergency operation is underway

after reports of an explosion in a back street in Barnsley.

It's an operation the Helimed team is about to join.

It says there's one person trapped with facial burns.

Not sure how bad the entrapment is and how bad the burns are,

I'm just waiting for an update from the RRV that's on the scene.

Roger, we're just approaching Yankee and set course to head out.

The Helimed 99, we're visual upon the battery.

You've just got to wait till you get there to weigh it up.

Obviously with reports like there's a potential for serious injury.

If this patient has got severe, extensive burns to the body

then the best place to be treated would be at Pinderfield Burns Unit

which, by land, is quite some distance and time away.

Whereas by air we could be there in 10 minutes.

It's opposite this intersection, it should be down here somewhere.

Pilot Steve Waudby knows the location of the incident

will make his life difficult.

Barnsley's a former mining town

full of tightly packed terrace houses.

-Residential housing now underneath.

-Yeah, Roger.

No one in that car park at the moment, that'll be perfect for us.

Any lines anywhere? No.

His landing site is locked up.

The fire brigade have the answer.

Have you got a crowbar?

That's it, come on.

Glen relies on his ground-based colleagues

to bring him up to speed on the case... And it's serious.

Hello. How you doing?

I've got two patients. The ambulance crew will be about six minutes,

it's back at Farringdon.

This is the motorbiker who's been injured.

Looks like he's had the full frontal of the explosion over his face.

35-year-old Lee Savage was helping a friend with building work

when a spark from a shovel ignited petrol fumes.

All his back is burnt, arms.

Have we got a spinal board we can put him on, no?

He has serious burns to his head, back, chest and arms.

Been digging in a garage down there.

Some sort of explosion, don't know if it's petrol, gas or what.

Lee's lucky to be alive.

He was pulled out of this building in flames by a friend who was himself burned.

It's looks like they've cut an old petrol storage tank.

It's been drained but there will be vapours in it.

It will have built up and built up and they've cut it,

and it's just exploded.

Get him covered, get some fluids in. He's got 10mg of morphine.

They'd been trying to remove this underground tank when it exploded.

Firefighters had to put out the blaze as well as get Lee to safety.

It was just a big old bonfire, roof on fire and three casualties,

one badly burnt, one just mildly burnt and one basically in shock.

Have you got any clingfilm on your motor?

Lee's in agony, but with burns patients that can be a good thing.

It means the flames haven't destroyed the nerves in his skin.

-Another 10 of morphine going in.

-Lovely.

Clingfilm is the unlikely treatment for burns.

It seals the skin and prevents infection but allows heat to escape.

Ready, steady, lower.

Just support him wherever you can, that's it.

Keep going back. The clingfilm were all on that back, weren't it?

Lee has survived the explosion against the odds.

Can you remember what's happened?

HE MOANS

But his rescuers are concerned about his breathing.

All right, Lee, keep talking to me.

Hot gases from the fire have burned his windpipe.

We've got to lift him high. So we get a position first, get lined up.

Untreated, it could kill him.

He desperately needs the skills only a specialist burns unit can provide.

Young drivers have a hard time these days.

Insurance premiums of more than £1,000 a year

and much harder tests than their parents faced.

But the fact remains, teenage drivers do have more accidents,

as the Helimed team regularly discovers.

The M62 in East Yorkshire is officially Britain's fastest motorway.

It's thanks to a combination of relatively light traffic

and a carriageway that heads due west

from the busy port of Hull with scarcely a bend.

It's quite early morning, a lot of commuter traffic.

We're going to the M62 where we believe a lady's overturned her car

and has actually been ejected.

That brings on all sorts of thoughts,

ejection, high speed, mechanism of injury.

But we don't know the nature of her injuries at the moment.

Helimed 98's on final approach to the accident scene.

-I think the car's in the hedge still.

-Yeah, car's upside down.

It's happened near the inland port of Goole.

It's here the M62 climbs 200ft in the air to cross the River Ouse.

-Jenny's been thrown clear of that car. Are we all ready?

-Yeah.

-Ready, steady, turn.

-All right, Jenny, you're doing really well.

Trainee teacher Jenny Waterhouse's hatchback

has plunged down an embankment and rolled over.

She was thrown from her seat and landed 10m away in a field.

-She's complaining of central spinal tenderness.

-Oh, my leg!

She swerved to avoid me, hit the central reservation

and then her car catapulted in the air, clipping mine over the top.

So we all pulled over and tried to talk to her.

She's been conscious all the time.

A bit distraught obviously because she doesn't know what's happening.

We rang her parents, so she's been talking to them as a diversion.

She's damaged her teeth and she's in pain from her hips.

I seen her in the field,

so she's clearly been flung straight out to the field.

It was so fast. One minute I'm driving along,

the next minute I see a car doing flips, skidding and it's off.

I was just, like.

Jenny, open your eyes for me. Hello.

What we're going to do is pop a tiny needle in your arm.

So we can give you some decent painkillers.

It's really important, all right.

I know you don't want it but it's important that we do.

Paramedic Al Day knows motorists thrown from vehicles often

have internal injuries that are hard to detect without an X-ray.

If you have a very high mechanism of injury

you're likely to have some very serious injuries as a result.

She's in a lot of pain so we're going to give her some morphine.

Jenny, you've got loads of blokes hovering around you now.

SHE CRIES OUT IN PAIN

Take a deep breath for me, Jenny.

Jenny is a student at university in Leeds,

but she's been carrying out work experience at a primary school

near her home in Howden, close to the scene of the accident.

Just going to feel this. It's getting tight around your hips, Jenny.

-I'm really cold.

-I know.

I'm going to put you in the biggest, warmest sleeping bag you've ever been in, OK?

If she is bleeding internally,

this flight could be critical to her survival.

Keep pivoting.

Welcome aboard. There you go, Jenny.

She's maintaining her own airway.

She's got good air in bilaterally.

She appears to be hemodynamically stable for now.

After getting a traumatic phone call from Jenny

her mum arrives to comfort her.

-Jenny, it's mum.

-She's OK, don't worry.

We're about to take off now.

Do you want mummy to come with you?

Haven't got enough room, I'm afraid, mummy - no seats.

Few of her rescuers can believe Jenny can have been thrown 10m

from a moving car without sustaining a life threatening injury.

In the next half hour, hospital tests will reveal the truth.

The weather is the Helimed team's biggest enemy.

It's one of the few things that will stand between an injured patient

and a speedy rescue.

We're going to a 66-year-old gentleman

who's been out walking in the Peak District.

It's been a lovely day today.

He's fallen, but where he's fallen must be really hilly

and it's difficult to get anybody to him.

So we've called the mountain rescue to give us a hand.

The only reports we've got at the moment,

there are four people with him and he's perhaps got an upper leg injury.

The rambler has slipped on ice on Dovestone Tor,

a rocky hilltop 1,600ft up in the Peaks.

His injury isn't serious but his predicament is.

Snow storms are sweeping the area,

and pilot Andy Lister has his work cut out.

The weather may prevent him from reaching his patient.

You can see a little bit of hill fog starting to settle.

As we progress towards nightfall

we'll probably see those fog patches thickening and becoming more intensive.

As at the moment we're going out into the hills,

that's not good news for us.

Low cloud is swathing the hills,

but Andy has 20 years of experience in the cockpit and finally he picks

his way through the weather to the area where rambler is lying.

Looking out on this side,

just try and find somewhere relatively flat to put it down.

-This looks like it's got water underneath the snow.

-OK.

It just looks really uneven.

This bit doesn't look too bad, there's a flat bit here.

Right, what's happened then?

You see those steps coming down from that tor.

We were slipping.

This foot slipped and in trying to save myself with this one,

my leg bent underneath me and I thought my whole knee had gone.

Christopher was out with friends and family.

They're seasoned walkers and quickly recognised the danger

posed by his injury. They dialled 999 immediately.

What we're going to do, the weather is pretty rubbish and coming in.

We're going to lift you fairly quickly in the helicopter

and take you to an ambulance,

and an ambulance will take you to hospital to get it looked at.

It looked smooth and easy underfoot,

and then just in the little pockets of rocks there's a lot of ice.

-So there's no bad bang trauma going on?

-No.

There's a flexion rather than... It probably is muscular and ligament.

I'd be surprised if you'd break anything.

Obviously it's not as serious as a fracture in terms of bleeding

or being any threat to his life,

but it had made him just about immobile.

He'd reached the point of exhaustion, he'd tried to make his own way down

and he couldn't go any further.

Some of the Helimed team's passengers are nervous fliers.

Not this one!

-Do you do a bit of flying yourself?

-I do, yeah.

-Right. In a Robinson?

-In a Robinson.

-You do like dangerous sports!

They say if you can fly one of those you can fly anything!

Helimed 98's much bigger than the two-seat choppers

Christopher's used to flying in.

If he wasn't taken off the hill quite quickly in this weather,

as you can see the cloud's coming in,

then suddenly it's not just a leg injury we're looking at,

we're looking at a patient who's going to get hypothermia quickly.

That can snowball into all sorts of things.

If the party had left their call for help any longer,

this incident could have led to a far bigger operation

involving mountain rescue,

risking the safety of many more people on the icy peak.

But the weather could still leave Christopher

and his rescuers in trouble.

I'm going to go forward out of here and then look back at the ridge

-and see which is the optimum way over.

-OK.

Snow storms are gathering

and Andy knows this will be a difficult flight.

It looks a bit lower down here, doesn't it?

Give me a heading, please.

You've got a heading of 094 degrees, we're tracking at 168 at the moment.

Between him and Sheffield's Northern General Hospital

is a deadly combination of high ground and low cloud.

I'm going to follow these reservoirs round, I know the reservoirs...

If you go left here you'll go in through the low land of the reservoirs.

That's what I'm going to do.

Because I've followed these in before.

-It just takes you round there.

-Yeah.

Right, so we should start hitting built-up areas in a mile or so.

Paramedic Glenn's an experienced navigator

but this flight is hard work.

But at last they drop below the snow line and into Sheffield.

Rambler Chris didn't expect his walk to end this way.

Each step is painful.

But as a pilot himself he realises the feat of flying

that was needed to perform his rescue.

And a few days later, recovering at home from ligament damage,

he knows how lucky he's been.

The weather was just terrible, sleet and snow.

You wouldn't have been up in it.

Literally, we escaped in the nick of time, I'd say.

And I'm just so grateful.

There was no other way

that I could have just been plucked off that mountain.

Now let's return to the rescue of a worker badly burned

after a freak blast in Barnsley,

thought to have been caused by a spark from a shovel.

Fire Officers are already investigating

the case of the explosion, which rocked this quiet street.

But all paramedic Glen Powell's attention

is focused on ensuring the survival of his patient

by briefing doctors at the regional burns unit.

Hello, it's the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

I've got a 36-year-old male

with extensive second and third degree burns

to face, to back, both arms, and legs.

He's a little bit hypertensive. Tachycardic at about 125.

Lee Savage was helping a friend with building work

when he caught the full force of the blast.

Petrol fumes from an old underground tank are suspected.

Edison 99, you receiving? Over.

'Go ahead.'

Yeah, 99, just lifted at Barnsley,

en route to Pinderfield, ETA, nine minutes.

Knowing exactly how Lee was injured will help surgeons.

While his paramedics were treating their patient,

pilot Steve did some detective work.

Did you say you saw what had exploded, Steve?

Yeah, looked like an old... Like a big boiler.

-A massive cylinder.

-Right.

And the front edge of it has literally been blown open.

The welding seal around it has been blown right off.

-He's been stood right next to it when it's gone.

-OK.

Lee's now minutes from the regional burns unit

at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield

but his condition is showing worrying signs of deteriorating.

OK, Lee, we're nearly there now.

OK. Just squeeze my hand, squeeze my hand. Good lad.

Ready, steady, slide. Yeah, we're free, keep going.

And down. Lovely, thank you.

This hospital cost more than £300 million.

It's state of the art.

But the helipad still requires a transfer by land ambulance -

it's a planning oversight that's delaying Lee's treatment.

All right, Lee, we're just going into hospital, buddy.

Glen knows that Lee's injuries are so extensive

his survival is in real doubt.

Extensive burns to his face, both arms,

and his back, mainly.

And cutting up his trouser legs

it looks like he's got some second degree down there, as well.

Doctors use a simple formula

to work out the likely outcome for burns patients.

Their age, plus the percentage of burns.

If that adds up to more than 100, they're unlikely to live.

Lee's total is 96.

Although this gentlemen had burns to 50% of his body,

at that moment in time the wound that was going to kill him

was one that was in his throat, if he had one.

Swelling can occur very quickly and very easily

so it was time critical and he needed to be in a hospital department

where he could be anaesthetised,

and then a tube could be passed down the throat.

It's called securing the airway.

And that's what they've done here.

He's not out of the woods yet.

The treatment he's receiving in the immediate A&E department

is similar treatment to what he'd receive

in any trauma receiving hospital.

But the secondary care he'll receive here is specialised.

For the next few days,

Lee will remain in an artificially induced coma.

Then he'll need extensive skin grafts.

If he survives, his recovery will be long and painful.

Motorways are statistically the UK's safest roads

but when you do have an accident at 70 miles an hour, it's likely

to be serious. Some drivers, though, are luckier than others.

Doctors at Hull Royal Infirmary's trauma unit

are preparing for the arrival of trainee teacher Jenny Waterhouse.

She's lucky to be alive after she was hurled out of her

cartwheeling hatchback when it left the M62 motorway.

I just saw the car swerve across, hit the central reservation,

swerve back across, and then it just tumbled

down the embankment here, and landed there.

Seatbelts save lives. But Jenny's is one of the very few cases

where being thrown free of her car may have helped ensure her survival.

Her overturned hatchback is badly damaged

and the roof around the driver's seat has been flattened.

Do you want a little bit more painkiller?

Jenny landed 10 metres from her car.

Flying doctor James Milligan knows that she is unlikely

to have escaped unharmed from an accident like this.

But his patient's not showing any obvious signs of internal injuries.

He won't relax until she's been X-rayed and scanned in hospital.

Tests at Hull Royal Infirmary

confirm the helimed team's assessment.

Jenny's been incredibly lucky.

But not that lucky.

Her pelvis is broken and her liver is torn.

She's detained for a week before she's well enough to go home

to the market town of Howden.

And she'll be on crutches for a while.

I was on my way to a placement but I don't really remember much.

When I did the accident I just remember flying through the air

and landing in the grass.

But it all just happened so quickly.

One minute I was just driving, the next I was in the field.

So I can't really remember it, the actual accident.

Apparently I've not hit anybody, I don't really know what's happened,

but it's gone into the central reservation

then it's just rolled, then landed in the ditch upside-down.

Then I've flown out of the car and landed about ten metres away.

So, yeah, it's pretty scary.

But there is still one mystery that's yet to be solved.

How was she thrown from her car?

They said I'd have probably died, cos when I've landed, it was upside-down,

and the actual roof had caved in.

So it was flat, the roof, so there weren't much room for a person

to be sat in it, basically.

So I'm so lucky. Cos I was wearing my seatbelt,

so I don't really know, whether I've leant on it as I was going,

and then I've just been thrown out the car, but I'm quite glad to be honest.

Not surprisingly, Jenny's car was a write-off

and she's now shopping for a replacement.

And if her mum has anything to do with it,

her next runabout will be packed with safety features.

It was awful to see the car and to think what she'd gone through

and how frightened she must have been.

As a mum, your instinct to protect comes in.

You know, there wasn't a lot I could do at that stage.

Three weeks ago I would never have thought you would be sat in a car.

Would we?

It was absolutely devastating to see that kind of scene.

But very reassuring when I got to the air ambulance

because they were all taking so much care of her.

Everyone's heard of the Yorkshire Dales and Moors

but there's another beautiful part of Britain's biggest county

that's always been overlooked.

Until now.

The Yorkshire Wolds covers 300 square miles of rolling countryside,

now put firmly one the map by the UK's greatest living artist.

It's stunning. Yeah.

I shall paint it. Very, very beautiful.

David Hockney left LA and moved to Bridlington.

Now he spends most of his time capturing the area's beauty.

If it makes people go and look at the landscape more carefully,

and enjoy it,

then it'll have done something rather good, I think.

Make you go and look at the actual place more.

Hockney celebrated his 70th birthday here

in the Wolds' most imposing home.

Sledmere House is the stately seat

of the sometimes eccentric Sykes family,

whose love of horse racing dates back two centuries.

But today a training gallop has led to a call for Helimed 99.

A member of staff has been kicked in the head.

At the moment that's the only details we've got.

But significant injuries can occur because of a kick in the face.

It would be nice to get there soon as. Then we can treat this patient.

Sledmere House stands at the centre

of an estate covering 9,000 acres.

But from the air it's surprisingly tricky to find.

It might be that we don't see the road.

No, but there's a big house here.

-I can't see a lot of other houses around.

-That'll be it, that there.

Why don't I stick it on the grass in front of the house,

and you walk round?

Cos that's safe, we're away from everything

and we can reassess then.

As helipads go,

this has to be one of the most elegant places to land.

Over trees, my side.

Wish I had my camera.

You don't often get to land somewhere like this.

Just watch these ornamental trees, don't want to blow them over.

-RADIO:

-'The ground crew say the patient's got a rather large

'frontal scalp laceration.'

Paramedic Paul Kilner finds himself

in one of East Yorkshire's most popular tourist attractions.

Only this is winter and the house is closed.

-Hello?

-Hiya.

-Hiya, bud, you all right?

We've come round this way but we're not sure we've come the right way.

I'll just get... Is there a gate here, or latch on that side?

Do you want us to come round?

-Are you in the ambulance now, then?

-Yeah, we've got her in.

Yeah, do you want to bring it round?

Everything here was built on a massive scale.

And that's presenting Paul with an out-size problem -

how to find his patient.

-It's locked up.

-I thought this was open!

-No.

We've just landed here at the front, or what we thought was the front.

We spoke to a land ambulance

who is trying to redirect us back around again

because every gate seems to be locked and bolted.

So we're having a problem finding it and just going to walk round here

and see if we can get into an alternative site.

The security's understandable -

art thieves have struck at Sledmere in the past.

It's not helping the helimed team though.

And the patient's employer is worried.

She's a nasty cut. But she didn't lose consciousness.

She's been OK, talking all the way through it, so she's OK.

VIPs including senior royals

and Rolling Stone Mick Jagger have all driven up this drive.

Claire Nellist would rather not be here.

Claire is the stables secretary.

She was only helping out her boss when the accident happened.

Now she needs plastic surgery.

I've had a chat with Scarborough, with the doctor in A&E,

and she seems quite happy

that there's something that she thinks

she could be able to look after, the injuries that you've got,

and they'd be quite happy to look after you there.

Half an hour ago Claire was helping out in the racing yard.

Now she's airborne over the Wolds, heading north

to an appointment with A&E doctors in Scarborough.

Claire's injury is just as serious as the team feared.

She needs extensive stitching to a large wound

that penetrates to her skull.

Doctors tell her that if the horse had been shod,

the blow could have killed her.

Incredibly, she's soon back at work,

but still bearing the scars of her accident, physical and mental.

There's a hoof-print shape!

And there's three layers of stitching under there.

And then these ones, and then I had a CT scan, which was all right,

then the following week, my stitches out.

My skull was exposed but luckily the horse didn't have shoes on.

If it did, it'd have been a different story.

I'm nervy around them now, but it'll all come back.

That's all I've ever known, is horses. So it'll be fine in the end.

The Wolds can be a dangerous place,

especially when the summer comes.

This is biking country.

The A166 attracts thousands of riders every day in summer,

enjoying a blast to the coast.

But for some, the ride ends in agony.

In the last five years, 39 bikers have been killed

and more than 300 seriously injured in East Yorkshire.

The local police have an unusual method of slowing them down.

This Suzuki Hyabusa

is the fastest road bike on the market.

And it's used to film speeders.

Just ask you to take your helmet off and face the camera there, please.

The reason I've cautioned you

is because it's possible you've committed an offence.

Unmarked camera bikes followed you from Bugthorpe.

While many bikers ride safely,

police say the evidence of today is that too many do not.

One rider was recently clocked at 138mph.

So fast he went to jail.

Helimed 99 is once again on its way to the Wolds and another accident.

We'll get a traction splint on that right leg.

On a road near the oddly named village of Wetwang,

a biker has lost it on a bend.

His high-powered Yamaha R6 has left the road,

catapulting him into a hedge.

He overtook me, pretty fast.

But there was another car on our side of the road and he just hit it.

Gavin Rice is very badly hurt.

Local emergency doctor Mike Hardman has been treating him.

He's got a severe injury to his right leg.

It's broken in at least two places.

And to his right arm, which is also broken.

Put that on, cos his ankle's completely gone.

-Has it?

-Yeah, we'll not be able to do that.

-Pelvis?

-It would be good if we could strap that as well.

He's had a lot of pain relief,

some fluid and some oxygen, and we need to get him to the hospital now

to have those injuries stabilised.

Airway good. Breathing, Glenn?

-Yes.

-Chest good, that's OK.

Paramedic Lee knows his patient needs urgent surgery.

Can we do a bit of a controlled move?

Just be careful with him, OK, because it's heads in the blocks.

We just need to come to his left, all right?

One, two, three, slide.

-That's it.

-Well done, Gavin.

That's it, buddy. We're just getting you strapped up on to here.

Keep going.

The ETA will be about 10 or 12 minutes down to Hull Royal.

We need a resus team, trauma team, please, stood by at Hull Royal.

Gavin is flying south to the waiting trauma team at 150 miles an hour -

a speed some bikers have actually reached on the roads of the Wolds.

If you could hurry him along, this patient is quite poorly.

We will be arriving in about nine minutes, over.

This rider's injuries will leave him permanently disabled.

Doctors at Hull Royal Infirmary find his leg is broken in 23 places.

At one point he's given a 6% chance of survival.

But, against the odds, he lives.

When winter comes, the Yorkshire Wolds are a harsh place to live.

Almost a thousand feet up, the snow can lie for weeks.

We've been requested to attend in Driffield

to assist a rapid response vehicle that is on scene with a patient

who's sustained a lower leg fracture,

but obviously conditions are treacherous underfoot

and we've got some road chaos going on at the same time.

The ambulance crew is on scene and can't make it to the hospital

because the roads are completely sort of sheet ice.

Now, boys and girls,

we are in the land of gossamer.

The low-lying Vale of York is shrouded in fog.

Starts to build a bit up...

But there's good news on the horizon.

The Wolds are emerging from the fog and visibility is almost perfect.

The chopper is a welcome sight for their patient, who has been

lying on the freezing ground below.

-Nothing?

-No.

-Nothing to worry us.

Gillian Kirby was out walking the dog when she slipped and fell.

Her leg's badly broken.

Pain score was excruciating when I arrived.

So, Gillian, if it was 10 out of 10 before we gave you the pain relief?

-Three or four now.

-About three or four.

-Are you happy to tolerate that, yes?

-Yes.

OK. Super.

Another dog walker found Gillian and alerted her family.

Now her husband, daughter and son-in-law are at her side.

Walked from home, round the field, got to here and just slipped.

We think she'd broken her tib and fib in her left leg.

She's been here about three quarters of an hour now

while the ambulance has been getting her strapped up and...you know...

ready to go in the helicopter.

Gillian's already receiving treatment as an outpatient

at her nearest trauma unit, Hull Royal Infirmary.

-Where would you like to go?

-Hull.

-Hull!

-Well, we'll do our best.

But this is lovely and clear where we are

but in every direction it's foggy, so we're going to make a decision

and get to the hospital that we can get to. OK?

But there's bad news on the weather. Hull, too, is fogged in.

'Helimed 98, are you receiving?

'They're saying it's very foggy at Hull

'but apparently Scarborough is clear, over.'

That answers your question.

So Gillian's taking off for Scarborough,

20 miles and ten minutes to the north.

Once again, the Wolds are defying the sub-zero temperatures that

have brought a blanket of fog down across most of northern England.

-Still got patches hanging around here.

-Yep.

-Plenty of fluff.

-Nearly there now.

We'll bring you straight into hospital

and keep you inside that nice bag as well so you'll be warm.

Gillian is now minutes away from A&E.

Her leg is set and she's soon back home.

But it'll be a while before she's fit enough to walk the dog again.

One of David Hockney's most celebrated paintings

of the Yorkshire Wolds is of an unspoilt and barren

winter landscape - not a soul to be seen.

Very similar to the view greeting helimed pilot Andy Lister today

as he flies in East Yorkshire.

A small group of habitation up on the nose,

range about two miles. Anywhere near there, do you think?

And it's a combination of remote landscape,

freezing temperatures and steep Wold inclines

that have tempted and caught out an over-enthusiastic teenage sledger.

Obviously the people of East Yorkshire are enjoying

this snow at the weekend and making the most of it,

not very safely by the sound of things.

When the view is nothing but white sky and white ground,

you need sharp eyes.

-Yes, that's the ambulance.

-Yes, the ambulance is there on the corner.

-I've got the ambulance.

-Yes.

-They're all heading in this direction.

-They are.

-Why don't I put it in that field there, then?

-Yes.

Much of the Wolds slope gently, but the young sledgers

have chosen their hill for speed. It's a steep V-shaped valley and

that's going to mean a challenging landing for pilot Andy Lister.

I'm going to put it near this sheep path

in presumption that sheep know what they're doing.

Keep the dog with you.

OK, we can compact this snow. There you go.

What's happened? Apart from the obvious, I would imagine!

We came down that hill in this, three of us,

-and she was sitting at the back.

-OK.

Then we sort of wiped out around there

-and then when I sat up she was just in shock on the floor.

-OK.

Bad sledging accidents involving dinghies are surprisingly common.

They go downhill all right,

but there's no steering and no brakes.

Have you moved from where you fell out?

Did you roll to this position? Have you tried getting up?

I tried getting up but my back hurts.

Paramedic Pete's patient, 19-year-old Olivia Frost,

lives in the village at the top of the hill.

-My head hurts.

-OK, can you take a deep breath for me?

-Yes.

-Does it aggravate that pain a little bit?

-A little bit.

-OK.

We'll keep you nice and warm.

Olivia's brother Josh was also in the makeshift sledge.

Fortunately he made it to the bottom of the hill and raised the alarm.

We just wiped out towards the bottom of the hill.

She was sitting at the back and just fell out.

There's quite a lot of rocks sticking out,

maybe that's what she hit her head on, but not sure.

She's complaining of some back pain,

so as a precaution we're going to collar and board her

and get her to hospital where they can assess fully her spine.

She's got no weakness, no problems that's immediately concerning us.

She's bumped her head as well, so we'll treat her for the worst

and hopefully she'll be checked over and not be too worse for wear.

The crew is taking Olivia to hospital in York.

Certainly I was surprised by the depth of the snow there

but the severity of the banking there,

if they were actually trying to carry Olivia out

they would have had a great difficulty to get her out.

I'm sure it would have taken a mountain rescue team to get her out

if we'd not been available

because there was no safe way, no safe access to that location.

Olivia is flying in to York Hospital's accident and emergency department.

She has as yet undiagnosed back, neck and head injuries.

She spends a very uncomfortable night in hospital

but is allowed home the next day -

battered, bruised, and a little bit wiser.

I think I remember the dinghy kind of swung around

so I was then at the front but obviously coming down backwards

and I remember thinking, "I'm going to fall out of this."

And then after that I don't really remember anything else.

Apparently I just kind of flew out of the dinghy and it pushed me

down the rest of the hill and I just rolled to the bottom.

I vaguely remember talking to my brother

and asking if he'd call an ambulance.

That was what I was concerned about but he was really good,

he was really reassuring and just said, "Stay calm, it's OK,

"the ambulance is coming,"

and he covered me in a coat as well so I didn't get too cold.

It seemed kind of like a good idea

because my brother said it hadn't been too fast

but I don't think I'll be getting on any dinghies in the future

around snow and I think I'll be avoiding snow for quite a while!

I'm pleased to say all our patients are now back home on the Wolds

and on the road to recovery.

But what about Lee Savage,

the man badly injured when a petrol tank exploded in Barnsley?

Let's catch up on his case.

It's six weeks since Lee became one of the most

severely injured patients ever admitted to

the new Burns Unit of Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.

Extensive burns to his face,

both arms and his back mainly.

Weee!

Yay!

It's been a difficult time for his girlfriend Jade

and their two-year-old daughter Abby,

left at home in Barnsley and warned that he may never

properly recover from the explosion that left him with 60% burns.

I just couldn't wait to see him and then we got to hospital

and we were waiting about five hours before we were allowed to see him.

I think it were about half eight or summat that we got in to see him

from half past two.

Ready? Weee!

'It were just a really big shock when we went in and seen him.

'It were like a plastic doll laid there.'

Jade is going to the hospital every day,

spending hours at Lee's bedside.

But at the moment she's going on her own.

I can't take Abby yet, he doesn't want to see her.

He is really, really missing her.

He's missing her like mad.

I think once he's talking,

that's when he'll want to see her, when he's talking properly.

Jade's worried that Lee's appearance may upset their daughter Abby

and that she might not recognise her dad.

I know when he sees her it's going to upset him

and when our Abby sees somebody else cry she always starts crying

and she'll say, "Aah, crying!"

and stuff like that.

It's going to be upsetting for us all when she does see him again.

Since the accident Jade has only told Abby that

her daddy is poorly. She doesn't know how she can explain

what's happened to Lee and why he now looks so different.

Lee has only hazy memories of the blast that was to change his life.

INDISTINCT: Fire, on the roof. Fire, fire, everywhere.

-There was fire everywhere.

-Yes.

-You've lost a bit of weight, haven't you?

-Yes.

You've lost about two or two-and-a-half stone, haven't you?

He'll have all-new skin, won't you?

Just be left with...scarring.

Lee says he will be forever grateful to his rescuers.

INDISTINCT: They saved my life.

-The air ambulance saved your life, didn't they?

-Yes.

If it weren't for them, and if it weren't for your friend,

-you wouldn't be here, would you?

-No.

It's been amazing the treatment he's had

and how far he's come in five weeks.

He's come a long way to what he were.

I felt we were going to lose him.

And I'm pleased to say Lee is now much better,

but he's been warned many years of treatment still lie ahead.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd